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Sunday, February 5, 2012

My husband plays video games...a lot. Well, I should rephrase that and say that he only plays one game - Modern Warfare 3. He plays online, with friends, with a headset. Oh yes, he is hardcore. So when it came time for me to think of a birthday cake concept for this year's birthday it was pretty much a no-brainer. Now I'm no fan of his gaming hobby, so I think that me making this cake for him should get me some sort of "wife of the year" award, shouldn't it? Yes, it should.
Here's the bane of my existence cake!

I covered the cake with black satin ice fondant. The insides were vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. His fav.

The controller is made of Rice Krispie Treat covered with fondant

I got trick candles so he had to huff and puff to blow them out. Tricky tricky!!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

I have a new love, a new show. It's New Girl on Fox! I first saw a commercial for New Girl in May of last year while at a friend's house. When I got home I searched for the commercial online so I could watch it again. Hilarious! I quickly friended the show on facebook and twitter and waited for it to air. When it finally came time for the premier I was super excited and it did not disappoint! New Girl is about Jess (played by Zooey Deschanel), who discovered her live-in boyfriend canoodling with another woman. She needed a place to live, pronto, and found Winston (Lamorne Morris), Nick (Jake M. Johnson), and Schmidt (Max Greenfield). The show follows Jess as she jumps back into singlehood and her adventures with the three handsome bachelors. The thing I love the most about this show is how silly and dorky Jess' character is...I can relate! Another thing, her wardrobe is just as cute as she is. When I saw that Duncan Hines was doing a New Girl "Adorkable" cake pops contest I was in, and I knew what my inspiration was going to be...Jess' clothes! Talk about right up my alley - I love New Girl and I love baking. This contest was made for me! :)

So here we go! First, here's how I made the pops...

Recipe:
1 box Duncan Hines Cake Mix any flavor (and ingredients indicated on the box for baking)
1 can of Duncan Hines Frosting any flavorChocolate Candy MeltsLollipop Sticks
Sprinkles or anything you'd like to use for decoration

First, bake your cake as directed on the box. Cool it completely and have a large bowl, spatula, and the icing ready.

Then scoop the cake out of the pan and start to crumble it over the bowl with your hands. Crumble it until you get fine crumbs. I do this in small amounts to make sure that I crumble every little bit.

Next scoop all of your icing out of the container and add to the cake crumbs.

Stir stir stir until the crumbs and icing are totally combined. It should look like a dough.

Next, use your hands to shape the cake dough into any shape your little heart desires. TIP: If this gets too sticky, lightly dampen your hands with a little water. Place your cake shapes on a cookie sheet and pop it in the freezer for 15 minutes or until the shapes are firm.

Melt your chocolate candy melts in the microwave 30 seconds at a time until they are smooth. Stir between each 30 seconds. I use sturdy plastic cups to eliminate cleanup, but make sure you don't get them too hot or they will melt! TIP: if your chocolate is too thick, add a tiny drizzle of vegetable oil and stir. This should thin it out a bit.

Dip your stick into the chocolate about 1/4 inch.

Then insert the stick half way into your cake shape. I used a round ball here.

Tilt the ball around in the chocolate until it is completely covered.

Flip vertically and allow the chocolate to set. You can pop the stick down into a piece of styrofoam to let it firm up. Add sprinkles while the chocolate is still wet to make em pretty!

And without further adieu, here are my entries into the cake pop contest! Check out the videos to see them in action. :)

First, Jess' dress that she wore in the pilot episode. Super cute!! The design on the dress was made by melting white chocolate in a plastic zip bag, snipping a tiny bit off of the bottom corner and squeezing the chocolate out onto the pop.

Next is Jess' starfish, um, lingerie? The bra and undies were make by painting some wet chocolate over the dried pop and quickly shaking some blue and purple sprinkles over the wet chocolate. The black starfish and straps are made with fondant.

This is inspired by the turkey costume that Jess wore in the Thanksgiving episode. One of my favorites! Mr. Turkey has candy corn making up his colorful plumage and beak, and a black fondant hat.

And finally, I just couldn't let the guys go unrepresented. Here we have Schmidt's sexy Santa costume from the Christmas Episode. This is made by first dipping the pop into the flesh color, then dipping the shorts in the red color and painting on the red and white trim after that. The buttons and belt are black fondant with a gold belt buckle painted on with luster dust.

Monday, January 9, 2012

It's been a month or so since I made this cake and I'm just getting around to posting it. Darn busy holiday season! So here it is...a daisy cake that I made for my friend Holly's birthday. Holly is a friend that I've made here in Wisconsin. We have a lot in common, and it's been fun hanging out with her! She requested a daisy cake for her birthday and here is what we came up with. It is covered in green fondant and white gumpaste daisies that I hand made. The white pearls around the bottom were made with a mold like this. The inside was red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. Num yummy!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Tailgate Truffles Tutorial, Tailgate Truffles Tutorial, Tailgate Truffles Tutorial, Tailgate Truffles Tutorial,Tailgate Truffles Tutorial. Say that five times fast! The NFL Playoffs are coming this weekend and these Tailgate Truffles are perfect to bring to a football party. They are super yummy and decadent. As promised, I've put together a little tutorial to show how I made them. I'm a Packer fan, so I went with green and gold, but of course you can personalize these to match your team's colors. You can find pre-colored chocolate at any craft store or on amazon.com
Here we go!!!

1. Place entire package of Oreos into a food processor that has a chopping blade attachment
2. Put the lid on and pulse pulse pulse until the Oreos are totally ground up into fine crumbs
3. Place Oreo crumbs into a bowl with the 8oz package of cream cheese
4. Mix the Oreos and cream cheese until they are totally combined. They will come together to make a dark brown dough
5. Using a small cookie scoop or just a simple tablespoon, drop spoonfuls of the Oreo dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper
6. Shape the dough into round balls using the palms of your hands. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes
7. Place your two colors of chocolate into two separate bowls. Melt in the microwave as directed on the package.
8. Take your dough balls out of the freezer and place a few into the bowls of chocolate.
9. Use a fork to entirely coat your truffle with the chocolate
10. Gently lift the truffle out of the chocolate and place back on the lined cookie sheet
11. Fill two ziplock bags with a small amount of each color of the chocolate. Snip a tiny amount off of the bottom corner of the bag and squeeze the chocolate out over your truffles. Alternate the colors - on mine, I squeezed yellow chocolate on the green truffles and vice versa.
12. Place back in the freezer to let the chocolate set up. Enjoy!

I've created a pictorial story board of each step of the recipe. Just follow along step by step, number by number. If you are on Pinterest, this is a great photo to pin for this recipe. It is all one image so pin away my friends!!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Here's a peek at my latest sweet treat - Oreo Tailgate Truffles. These guys are made from a super simple Kraft recipe using Oreos, cream cheese, and chocolate. Just customize the colors to match your favorite sports team and that's it!
Tutorial and recipe coming soon!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

This will be the fourth Halloween that Ryan and I have known each other and the third that we have been together. How sad is it that this is our first year carving pumpkins together??? Better late than never, I suppose! We begin our pumpkin fun at a local pumpkin patch...

We both picked our favorite pumpkins...

Then they sat on the back porch for a week. Our poor pumpkins sat there unceremoniously, got rained on, and occasionally sniffed by the dog. Until Saturday when we went to town...

Ryan carved an Incognito pumpkin...

...and I carved a swirly, girly pumpkin.

Tonight they sat glowing on our front stoop welcoming the trick-or-treaters. I suspect their eventual fate will find them smashed on the street by a gang of unruly teenagers. That remains to be seen, but until then....HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Stuff by Stace has a new facebook group! I'll be posting all of my entries there so you can follow along there to know when a new post is up. It's a great place for questions and comments too. So join me!Stuff by Stace on Facebook